As time goes by, I am warming up to AI. While I acknowledge that it raises many legitimate questions and concerns, and that it requires a great deal of wisdom to use it well (and not use it poorly), I also see many ways in which it can prove an extraordinarily useful tool. I am increasingly of the opinion that it will soon become as ubiquitous and, in a sense, as unremarkable as our mobile phones are now.
Does that sound unlikely? Twenty-five years ago, we would have called you crazy if you had told us that we’d all be carrying a glowing rectangle with us at all times, and that the strange ones would be the few who opt out. Yet here we are. I suspect AI is going to move in on our lives in similar ways, or possibly even more substantial ones. It is going to be a technology that will exist in the background of our lives whether we like it or not, but in various ways, most of us will probably also welcome it into the foreground.
AI is already really good at a lot of things. I have continued putting it through its paces and have been impressed with its abilities, even in the relatively early form in which it exists today. While there may be a good bit of up-front investment in learning and training it, it can soon pay great dividends in time, efficiency, and productivity. While it is capable of creative work, it seems to excel at busy work—the kinds of repetitive tasks that so many humans are only too eager to turn over to others, whether human assistants or electronic. If there is a defined process that needs to be done on a repeated basis—sorting, filing, filtering, updating—there is a strong likelihood that AI can handle it. If there is a data set that needs to be searched, synthesized, or manipulated, it can probably handle that as well. If there are policies to be written or contracts to be evaluated, it excels at these as well. Not only can it do such tasks, but it can usually do them at lightning speed and with the kind of efficiency that needs to be seen to be believed. Generally speaking, I am in favor of using it in these ways.
Of course, some people are using AI to do creative work as well, and this concerns me a great deal more. There are already a host of YouTubers who are using AI to generate scripts for their videos, then using it to edit them, generate the thumbnails, and create and schedule all the social media content. The YouTuber only needs to type a prompt, then sit in front of the camera to read the words that have been generated, and AI does the rest. There are plenty of writers who are doing something similar. I recently read a piece by a very popular writer who explained that he has reduced his workday to just a couple of hours because AI now generates all of his articles, including the one I was reading. You can’t help but wonder how long it will be before such YouTubers and writers become redundant and step out of the loop altogether.
I understand why so many people are turning to AI to do their creative work. Creativity is hard, and not only hard, but slow. It takes time and effort to come up with ideas and it takes more time and more effort to turn those ideas into something worth reading, hearing, or watching. AI promises to bring efficiency to a process that has always been inefficient. With a single prompt, I can generate an article on a topic that is of interest to me and in a voice that approximates my own. Within seconds, that content can be created, branded, and shared with the world. A process that might have taken hours or days now takes seconds or minutes. At a time when we so value efficiency, it can be hard to resist that kind of gain.
What if we turn over to AI a process that is an important part of what it means to be human, and one that is genuinely good for us?
But at what cost? What if the inefficiency of creativity is a benefit rather than a drawback, a feature rather than a bug? What if the purpose of creativity is greater than merely generating the output? What if creativity fosters a kind of inner formation that is every bit as important as the work that eventually results from it? What if we turn over to AI a process that is an important part of what it means to be human, and one that is genuinely good for us?
Once AI is deeply involved in administering our lives and carrying out our creative functions, it seems but a small step to deeply integrate it in our spiritual lives as well. Is it hard to pray? Let AI generate a prayer for you. Is it hard to understand the Bible? Have AI summarize the passage for you. Are you struggling to prepare a Bible study? Have AI outline or even prepare the whole thing for you. It is an ever-willing servant and gladly does all this and more. Give it the right prompt, and it will probably do it pretty well.
But once again, what if the struggle is key to the purpose? What if prayer isn’t meant to be easy, and what if its difficulty accomplishes something meaningful inside of us? What if the process of correctly interpreting the Bible and faithfully applying it is a means God uses to form his people? What if preparing studies or sermons is more than just generating content for others, but a way God shapes our souls and conforms them to his will? What will happen to us if we invite our tools to do all of this for us? We may gain efficiency, but what we lose will be far more important, and this will be to our own impoverishment.
The fact is, sanctification is the work of a lifetime, a slow effort for which not even the greatest Christian minds have ever found successful shortcuts. There are means involved, and sometimes methods as well. But there are no shortcuts, no boosts, and no power-ups. Though the Spirit joyfully empowers us, no one else can do it for us—neither man nor machine. Rather, we must all engage in the work, we must all put in the time, and we must all go through the process. We must all put sin to death and come alive to righteousness by God’s grace and for God’s glory. Though technology is fast, sanctification is slow, and neither Claude nor anyone else can do it for you.
